So basically here's the story.
I live with my boyfriend. We both play on Travian USx servers. Because we live together we follow the rules and put ourselves down as "same computer usage". There's a rule that limits every person to only one account. This way we can both have our own account without breaking the rules.
I was sick the first week of March and my boyfriend stayed at home to take care of me. As stated before, we both play Travian. We are also both very competitive so we both use gold. On the fateful March day that this ordeal began (March 5th to be precise), both of our accounts needed more gold. So we used our credit card and purchased gold for both accounts.
Everything continued as normal after that. We were blissfully unaware of the repeated charges our credit card was about to endure.
Flash forward 2 weeks:
It's March 23rd and the bill for our credit card is due. So like a good little consumer, I dutifully logged on to the credit card company website and go to pay my bill.
Imagine the shock and surprise I felt when I say that the card had not been charged twice in the month of March, but 7 times. There were 5 unauthorized charges ($125 total) on my credit card bill!
I immediately sent a message to the admin on my game server asking if there was a way to see what account those charges were applied to. In my naivety, I assumed that someone had cloned my credit card the last time I had purchased gold and had been using it to buy gold for their account. The admin (MH) responded, telling me that I needed to send a mail to the people that handle "plus" accounts (that is, accounts that use gold).
I played along and mailed the email address I had been given, knowing this had to be some big mistake and that the system would work for me and that it would all get fixed. The person who responded said they needed the name of my account, the server I was playing on and a proof of the charges (a screenshot of my credit card bill would suffice). I sent them the information they were wanting.
2 days later, I was given the following response:
"Hello,
Unfortunately if you wish to cancel the charges you will have to take it up with the bank and it will result in your account being banned. However if you wish to simply get the gold for the other charges then we can look into doing that."
I thought about it, and concluded that if the charges to my credit card were stopped, I could accept that as a solution. (However, there was now one additional charge to be added to the first 5).
The email exchange continued back and forth until I got my final email on April 9th.
"Hello,
We have checked with our plus department and they assure me that all the charges were requested by you and that you have recieved the gold for all of them on you account USx: xxx. I am told that you have also already spent a reasonable proportion of the gold, so that may be why it looks like you aren't getting any more."
I was livid when I got that response. Because by April 9th, there were a total of 11 faulty charges to my credit card. Before I continue, let me explain.
According to the above email, all of the gold had been credited to my account, not my boyfriends. So there were 11 unauthorized charges (6 after the time I first reported my problem), and 1 legitimate charge to my credit card. All of the charges were for 600 gold (a total of 7200, or $300).
Now then, some extra details for the Travian players out there. My account plus ran out around April 5th. My resource plusses ran out maybe a week later. I don't have offensive or defensive bonuses on my account, and never have. The string of gold charges began on March 5th. Today I have 14 gold left on the account and the account has not had any bonuses on it in 2 weeks at a minimum.
So... I am alleged to have used 7200 gold in one month and none of it went to making sure my account stayed "plussed" for weeks into the future.
Also of note, we're talking about a top 5 account and a nearly top 20 account, both in the top ranked alliance. I knew that if I called my credit card company and disputed the charges that both accounts would be banned. And I think anyone who plays the game will know the following to be true:
1. To use 7200 gold in one month but not use it to plus the account for weeks into the future would be nearly impossible
2. If you worked to get a top account, you certainly would not jeopardize it if you were at all at fault
I'm pretty sure since I am writing this blog, you can guess what happened next.
That's right. I spent an hour on the phone with my credit card company explaining the situation to them. The woman I talked to told me that they could give me credit for the charges I was disputing and that they would have to issue a "chargeback" to Travian to recoup the funds. I knew as soon as I agreed that my account would get banned at some point in the future.
I told her to go ahead with the chargeback and asked how I could make sure the account wouldn't get charged anymore, because I just wanted the charges to stop. She said she would put a note into the chargeback she was issuing to never charge my account number again. I also sent an email to the Travian people asking for a log of my gold usage. I know I haven't used that much gold and if they say I have, I want the logs to prove it.
Flash forward!
Yesterday, while my boyfriend and I were on our respective accounts, we both get messages saying our accounts had been banned, and that we could email a different email address from the one I had been dealing with to dispute our bans.
We both sent emails.
As of this moment, he has gotten a reply, I have not. I also haven't gotten the gold logs I asked for on April 10th. I made sure to mention them again in the mail I sent yesterday.
So there we have it. 2 accounts banned because the Travian billing department is faultily billing people for gold, and then banning their accounts when they have the audacity to complain.
I tried to work things out with them first. For 2 weeks I tried. But I felt I was left no other option.
I will likely post the email correspondence later, including the response that my boyfriend got from his mail yesterday (paraphrased it was: "Since the chargebacks cost Travian money, we are permenently banning your account.")
